The Adventures of Elder Ben Jarvis, serving the the Mexico Guadalajara Mission, the second half of his mission.

Monday, July 22, 2013

Tacos, Trains and Tostados

Tendremos un bautismo en dos semanas. Si Jenifer estara bautizada, pues, el examen, estuvo bien, mi hizo saber que necesito estudiar mejor los otros capitulos de pme. Come le fue su semana?si, las recibi, estoy leyendo el suyo ahorita, 38 en la capilla ayer, incluyendo 3 investigadores y 2 miembros menos activo, y un buen que no vinieron, pero bueno, que puede hacer.I am sorry, but I am going to speak in English now so that I will be able to write more quickly and because I have been feeling rather frustrated with my Spanish lately. I thought that it would be one long process of just continually getting better at it, but I guess it does not always work that way. This week went ok , at least at the end of it, the middle of it was quite tough again, the whole Tuxpan, very few members, none who can accompany us to the lessons sort of mentality got to me a little bit. We have not eaten anything yet today, last monday we bought a chicken again, and it was awful.More people came to church yesterday than did the last week. Much of that was because one of the daughters of an active couple here came from out of town with her many, many crazy kids, haha. And because 2 members of the District Presidency were there, but we will take whoever is there. Lupita and her sister Magda came to church yesterday as did Jenifer, and a less active member, Josefina came for the first time since I have been here. Arel Munoz got sick the other day and she was going to talk in church as well, but could not come because she was sick. I am not sure if I told you, but she is quite pregnant, as is the wife of our branch president, and hno. Munoz, well, about the same. I guess this week was a typical mission week, up and down. Friday was absolutely awful, we had nothing to do, nobody was home, all of the appointments were falling through. Satan was working hard to get us discouraged. The good thing was, that at the end of the day we did find someone to teach. We taught Viridiana, and her son Cesar, who is 9 years old. We had a good lesson with them, I have always really liked her son, for some reason he reminds me a lot of Zack. And I felt a little bit better after that. Things have been very tough for Viridiana, she was sealed in the temple and her husband was the elders quorum president then all of the sudden he left her and their 3 kids for the second time and now is living with another woman. Viridiana´s son is already a member. She does not have a problem with a church, but you know that it a small town like Tuxpan things get around quickly and everyone knows what happened, including an investigator we taught this week. We did not find any new investigators, but we did have a good lesson with Carmen, Lupita, and Magda, this was one lesson. We read the introduction of the Book of Mormon with them, and they understood it really well and we felt the spirit strongly. They all 3 accepted a baptismal date for the 17th of August and Magda and Carmen came to church yesterday as did Jenifer who has a baptismal date for the 3rd of August. It is also Jenifer´s birthday today, she turns 11. Josefina, a less active member who had not been to church for a long time came this week as did a young girl and her grandmother who are from here, but are living in the state of Mexico. A less active member who just moved here from Guzman came to English Class on Saturday and afterwards bought us Tacos. We teach English classes every Saturday at the church.I exercised all 6 days and me and Elder Hernandez went running 2 days, during one of the which it was really foggy and cool. Also these big huge trains have been passing by here lately and sometimes we have to wait for them to cross the tracks to walk to our next lesson.I really like the trains, they are pretty cool, we can hear them, but they do not bother me during the night. We ate a ton of really good tostadas with hna. Soledad, she just kept giving us more and more and more. The husband of Hna. Victoria died on Saturday, he was 95 years old. We gave him 2 lessons during the week including one saturday, but when we visited him Saturday, it just felt like he was not going to make it. He was 30 years older than his wife, she was one of the first members here of Tuxpan. I am so jealous Mom that you so easily talk to new people at church, maybe you should move down here for a little bit, we could use some help! I taught Sunday School Class yesterday too, and felt like it went well, I always seem to be blessed with the gift of tongues when giving a talk or teaching a class. I have about 10 minutes left, I was thinking today about how crazy it is that Nate will be leaving to the MTC in 2 weeks, wow it is coming up fast! I really like the letter that Nate was supposed to read before entering into the MTC.Tomorrow we have interviews with President Wagner in Guzman. Sorry but I have got to go now, have a great week! I love you and miss and think about you all of the time!